The Bishop's Tale

Chapter Four

Aunt Matilda rose the next morning still graywith grief, and Alice, who had shared her mother’s bed, showed herown weariness around her eyes. Frevisse and Dame Perpetua,with their hurried journey’s ache and weariness still in them, hadslept on the servants’ truckle beds, while the servants and Alice’slady-in-waiting slept on straw-filled mattresses, all now pushedout of the way and out of sight under the tall bed.

For the two nuns, the morning preparationswere simple: They were washed and dressed and their wimples andveils neatly pinned in place while Alice’s lady-in-waiting wasstill combing out and braiding her lady’s hair before dressingher. With hardly three words said between them, they drewaside to stand out of the way.

Frevisse, watching the bustle and chatteraround her cousin and unnaturally silent aunt, remembered Chauceronce saying that men who are tired grow quiet, while women growtalkative. Aunt Matilda had clearly passed weariness to theedge of exhaustion. While laying out her lady’s black gownfor the day, Aunt Matilda’s woman, Joan, in a tone only a servantof long standing would dare to use, said abruptly, “You’ve nobusiness being out and about today, my lady. No one expectsit of you. There’s people enough to see to what needsdoing.”

“But the guests. Thomas wouldwant-”

Alice cut in with, “Father would want you notto make yourself more ill than you already are.”

She looked to Frevisse over Matilda’s head,and Frevisse immediately said, “Truly, Aunt, you’ve been throughweeks of enduring. Today will be full of people arriving forthe funeral, and everyone wanting things from you if they see you,when what you need just now is to gather your strength fortomorrow. There’s nothing today that Alice and I can’toversee or come to you when we need direction. Please, Aunt,listen to us on this.”

Matilda shook her head refusingly through allof Frevisse’s words. But at the end of them, Alice kneltbefore her, took her hands, and pleaded very sweetly, “Please,Mother. Let us do this for you.”

Matilda closed her eyes over suddentears. Her body slackened its rigid determination to go on,and in a faltering voice she said, “Perhaps, perhaps you’reright. It’s tomorrow I should be thinking of, when we… whenwe…” She could not say, “bury Thomas,” but when, withvisible effort, she had regained control, she opened her eyes andbegan to tell them everything that needed doing today.

Check the linen closet for blankets and setthe stable hands to filling pallets with straw, she told them, thenmake sure the preparations for the funeral feast are under way andnothing is lacking in the kitchen, find sweet herbs to strew on thechurch floor, note every guest’s rank on arrival – be thereyourself to greet them, of course, and make sure they are incorrect order for the procession to the church tomorrow and at thefeast, see to it there is plenty of clean water so guests can washup on arrival, don’t let anyone mistake a washup bucket for achamber pot, ensure families who are feuding with one another sleepfar apart tonight and are not seated next to one another tomorrow,keep a fire burning in the great hall all day so arriving guestsmay warm themselves…

Alice and Frevisse shared a small grimace ofmutual sympathy over Matilda’s head as Joan encouraged her backinto bed and the endless list faded to a weary murmur.

By early afternoon the influx of guests hadbecome heavy. Nearest neighbors would come and go on the dayitself, but the November days were short and anyone more than a fewhours’ ride away would come today and stay over at least twonights. Thomas Chaucer’s connections had ranged from theranks of merchants in London to the innermost circles of courtpower, with all of them important, but precedence had to be notedand scrupulously given. To her relief, Frevisse found thatreceiving the highest ranking among them fell naturally to hercousin Alice. As widow of the earl of Salisbury, and now wifeof the earl of Suffolk, as well as daughter of the house, Alice wasalready acquainted with most of them; gracious in her duties, shereminded Frevisse both of the self-possessed little cousin Frevissehad last known, and of Chaucer himself.

Frevisse was left to see to the lesser folk,though lesser was a relative term. Landed knights andmerchants wealthier than earls were hardly lesser. But itmeant that she was waiting in the great hall when Sir WalterFenner, head of the prominent and numerous Fenner family wasushered in. The Fenners were among the most prominent patronsof St. Frideswide’s, though less generously and intrusively thanthey had been a few years ago, so Sir Walter and Frevisse werealready acquainted. Seeing him ushered into the hall, she hadtime to put on a polite face of mild pleasure tempered by theformal grief of the occasion, and said graciously, “How good thatyou could come, Sir Walter.”

“My deep sorrow that it’s for such asad occasion, Dame,” he replied. The Fenners had a longmemory for offenses, and the last time they had met, he had accusedher of hiding his mother’s murderer. But he knew the needs ofthe moment; his politeness was brief but correct. “Youruncle’s loss must grieve you deeply.”

“Indeed it does, sir.”

That was sufficient for both of them; but ashe turned aside to follow the servant who would show him in, shesaw that the squire with him was young Robert Fenner, who had aidedher against Sir Walter’s anger at St. Frideswide’s that same timeago. In the three years since she had last seen him, he hadleft the last of boyhood for young manhood, Frevisseobserved. But the brief, warm smile he cast her as hefollowed Sir Walter showed he remembered her.

Then the little, bouncing man – whom she hadlearned was Gallard Basing, the usher here – advanced on her withanother newly arrived guest. “Sir Clement Sharpe,” Gallardannounced with unusual terseness, and stood aside.

Sir Clement was a lean, pallid man withthinning hair the dull brown of dead leaves, and eyes that matchedit. He was elegantly dressed in a wide-cut dark bluehouppelande amply trimmed with gray fur, and a long-liripiped hatthat he had already removed for his bow to her, a bow a little moredeep and flourished than need be.

"My lady, my profound regrets for youruncle’s death.”

“Thank you. We greatly appreciate yourcoming. Aunt Matilda will be pleased.”

She did not understand the twitch of hismouth, or his answer. “Assure her we’d settled the matterbefore he fell finally ill, and I’ll not take advantage overit.”

She smiled and said, “I’m sure youwon’t.” Because whatever the matter had been, it would not beAunt Matilda he dealt with, but the earl of Suffolk’s lawyers, forSuffolk and Alice were Chaucer’s heirs.

“May I introduce my ward?” Sir Clement asked,and put back his hand to draw a girl forward. At firstFrevisse thought she was a child, but a more careful look revealedshe was more likely sixteen or seventeen, only small for her yearsand daintily made. “Lady Anne Featherstone.”

Lady Anne curtsied. She was dressed inplain dark wool for travel, but her manners were as pretty as herface. Frevisse curtsied back, but sir Clement was alreadyadding, less graciously, “And my nephew, Guy Sharpe.”

There was little family resemblance betweenlean and pallid Sir Clement and the broad-chested, handsome youngman who stepped forward on Lady Anne’s other side. He bowedand said appropriate words of greeting, but rather than his words,Frevisse noted the warm, sideways look of affection that Lady Annegave him as he did.

Frevisse was not sure if Sir Clement saw it,too, but before Guy had finished straightening, Sir Clement hadbegun to move away, drawing Lady Anne with him and to his otherside, away from Guy in one neat gesture. Frevisse saw theyoung man’s face tighten, his eyes on Lady Anne even as he finishedspeaking to her, before he followed in Sir Clement’s wake.

Frevisse hoped they kept in abeyance whatevercoil of trouble they were building until they had left Ewelme.

A gap in travelers came late in theafternoon, and Frevisse left her duties to go to the chapel. Except for a brief time this morning, she had not been there sinceyesterday about this hour.

Neither the shadows nor the candlelight northe cold had changed since then. Nor her grief. And shewas still tired, though now from dealing with too many people andtalking more than she was used to, rather than from cold andtravel. Even the watchers around the coffin might have beenthe same as yesterday’s; and then she saw that at least one of themwas: The household priest, Sire Philip.

She stood awhile inside the doorway, lettingthe silence envelop and soothe her, before she finally knelt topray. But she had barely begun when low voices outside thechapel’s shut door broke her concentration. She tried to prayin spite of them, but although their words were obscured by thechapel door, their emotions were not. A young man and a woman- or perhaps a girl – her tone desperate, urging something to theman, who answered with an urgency of his own.

Then there was a third voice, another man’s,raised loud enough to leave no doubt about what he said in angerand bitter satisfaction. “I thought you’d bothdisappeared most conveniently.”

The girl answered, her own words clear withmatching anger now. “How did you know where we were? Who told you?”

“I’m not the fool you wish I were. There aren’t that many places in a house this size and full ofpeople you could go to be alone. Once Jevan said you wereboth gone, I could guess where you were easily enough.”

“Jevan!” the girl said bitterly.

The young man began to say something, but wascut off scornfully by the older man answering, “You’re just idiotenough to think that, boy!”

Goaded into raising his voice, the young mansnapped, “Not so much an idiot as to think you can keep us apartforever!”

“You’d better think it, boy, because Ican!”

The girl cried out desperately, “We love eachother!”

Brushing past Frevisse on his way to thedoor, Sire Philip said under his breath, “Jesus, God inheaven.”

Supposing the young woman might take betterto her presence and hoping the men might abate their anger becauseit, Frevisse rose to follow the priest.

In the small antechamber to the chapel, SirClement Sharpe had his nephew Guy and his ward Lady Anne blockedinto a corner. Neither of the young couple looked intimidatedor shamed; side by side, they faced his towering anger at them withanger of their own, the girl’s hand laid possessively on Guy’sarm.

She was dressed now in a dark amber,high-belted houppeland and had loosed her pale, honey-colored hairin a haze around her head and shoulders. In the shadowed roomshe looked as delicately lovely as a carven angel, her brightnessthe focus of the dark anger between the two men.

“Love has nothing to do with whom you marry,”Sir Clement was saying with a sneer. “You marry whom you’retold and to the best profit. I paid money for that right andprofit and you’ll remember it!”

Before either Guy or Lady Anne could reply,Sire Philip said, “You’ll do better to remember where you are, andwhy, and lower your voices.”

His own voice was low, at church level, withno temper in it, but it stopped them and brought Sir Clement aroundto face him, clearly willing to turn his anger that way. Butthen with what Frevisse could only read as a dawning delight, heexclaimed, “God’s sweet breath, it’s Philip Base-born! You’relooking well above your place in the world!”

“And you’re disgracing yours,” Sire Philipreplied evenly. “This is a house in mourning, and on theother side of this door is the cause of it. Take your familysquabbling somewhere else. Or better, let it be until youleave Ewelme.”

Sir Clement cast a scornful glance at hisnephew and Lady Anne. “Better to tell them than me!” heretorted. “It’s their disobedience, not-”

“You’re too loud in the near presence of Godand death,” Sire Philip interposed.

“Don’t you dare speak to me like that, youfield whelp! I know-”

“Enough to mind your manners in theearl of Suffolk’s house, surely.” Sire Philip cut himoff more sharply. Sir Clement drew up short. In thatbrief advantage Sire Philip said as calmly as before, “May Isuggest you and your nephew and ward go to supper quietly now?”

The sideways life of Sir Clement’s mouth wasmore sneer than smile. “You may suggest. And I may doexactly what I want.”

He twitched his head in parody of a bow toSire Philip, then seemed to notice Frevisse for the first time andbowed more credibly to her, then held out his hand demandingly toLady Anne. Her chin jerked up and her lips tightened, but shestepped away from Guy, made a curtsy to Sire Philip and Frevisse,and, spurning the hand, left the antechamber. Sir Clement,pointedly ignoring his nephew, followed her. Guy, darklyflushed and silent, bowed in his turn and went after them.

When they were gone Frevisse said, “Despiteall that, I have the distinct impression Sir Clement was enjoyinghimself.”

“I’m quite sure he was.” Sire Philipturned. The small room’s single low-burning lamp was at hisback; in what shadowed light there was, the deep pockmarks of hisface were not visible, giving him momentarily the handsomeness hewould have had without them. But it was handsomeness withoutexpression as he said, “Strife has always been Sir Clement’sfavorite pastime.”

“You know him, then?”

“He did give the impression of knowing me,didn’t he?”

If there was amusement in Sire Philip’svoice, it was very dry. More than anything, hispolite-and-nothing-else tone and expression told Frevisse that heintended – and expected her – to say no more about what had passedbetween him and Sir Clement.

Matching him in discretion, Frevisse said,“What of his nephew and the girl? There seems to be troublethere.”

“It’s been a while since I had anything to dowith Sir Clement or any of his family. I have no idea whatthat was about, beyond guesses that you can make as well asI.” Now there was very definitely mockery in his tone.

“I daresay I can,” Frevisse said. “Though of course we may both be wrong, it being none of ourbusiness.” She turned back to the chapel to use what littletime she had left for prayers. She noticed Sire Philip didnot follow her; his place beside the coffin remained empty.